


Hard Reboot

by oisiflaneur



Series: RVB SEMICANON [2]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Gen, Multi, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-06 22:43:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4239414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oisiflaneur/pseuds/oisiflaneur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SPOILERS FOR RVB13, as of 30/06/15. based on a headcanon theory for epsilon's arc this season. relationships are mostly onesided and implied because everyone is an emotionally constipated fratboy except for caboose, somehow.</p><p>“Fuck, you know? I really hope this works.” There’s a hand against the simulation of his face, the other cupping his elbow as he curls in slightly on himself. “I promised Cee that we’d come back and help. We keep doing this to them, all of them. We make everything about us, our own stupid fucking petty problems, and then everybody else has to ride in and save our sorry ass. We might even be getting up to double digits, now!” The recording laughs, but what little humor is in it is dry and brittle, likely to crack and crumble under pressure or even just close scrutiny. “We’ve really got to make this the last scare, alright? Caboose’s heart can’t take this many more times.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hard Reboot

**Author's Note:**

> i couldn't stop thinking about this the theory in [this post](http://toomanychurches.tumblr.com/post/122220385347) and the last few episodes really fucked me up. then i spent six hours in a car and ended up with postseason blue team fixit fic. i'm actually feeling really secure about this possibility now, but honestly any excuse to make words about how church feels about the important people in his life. my elemental weakness is idiot boys who are bad at everything except for loving a lot. 
> 
> **content warnings:** obviously major spoilers for just about every season so far, canontypical gendered slurs and general douchery, and also ship headcanons abound.
> 
> my general writing tag is [here](http://oisiflaneur.tumblr.com/tagged/graywrites) for drabbles etc!

“Did it work?” Caboose stagewhispers, craning around Tucker to look down at the console.

“What the _fuck?_ ” 

The Blues jostle and peek and crowd around the workstation: or as much as they _can_ while staying behind Carolina, an anxious gaggle of armored ducklings nudging each other for the best view.

“Wow. His first words.” Tucker sounds unimpressed, his voice flat. “It must really be him, right?”

“The hell is going on? Who are you people? And why are you all so big?” The holographic soldier’s head twists around, staring at each of them briefly in turn.

Washington tries to bring a hand up to his mouth to stifle the snort that escapes him, despite still wearing his helmet; some mannerisms are just hardwired. “Yep, definitely. Hey, instead of his first steps, maybe we should keep track of the first time he flips somebody the bird.” 

“ _Boys._ ” Carolina’s voice lacks the usual warmth that creeps into her tone lately when she has to put a stop to their antics, and the rest of her team clams up, and stands up a little straighter. Dealing with a tense Carolina is roughly akin to dealing with a cornered wolverine, though perhaps not _quite_ as cuddly.

“Sorry, boss.” 

She turns back towards the figure in miniature standing above the keyboard, folding her arms and shifting her weight to one hip. Wash frowns invisibly, resisting the urge to reach out for her shoulder: the Blues don’t recognize her body language, but he’s been with her long enough to know that this is the Carolina equivalent of fidgeting anxiously.

“Do you know your name?” She says to the hologram, her voice low and deadpan. She doesn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up; even, or maybe especially, her own. 

The projection flickers for an instant, like an aging film reel, and when she looks closely, the tiny soldier is clutching the sniper rifle more like a safety blanket than a weapon. He doesn’t sound certain when he finally responds, but he gets the answer right nonetheless. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I… I’m Church.” 

There’s a collective sigh of relief, an exhale of the breath that no one seemed to know they were holding, and when Carolina speaks again, her voice has softened noticeably. “Well, close enough. Technically, your name is—“

“ _Church!_ ” Caboose cuts in, shoving her aside with a widely flung arm, pushing forward to lean over the hologram. “I have missed you so much! You were not dead for very long this time, but it felt like it was a very long time. Tucker is not very much fun at all when you are gone, and Freckles is not very good at conversation—“

The hologram jolts, craning back to stare upwards at Caboose. “Whoa, wait, what? Dead? Am I a ghost?” 

Washington just groans, and briefly wishes that he could rub his temples. “Not this again. I thought we were past the paranormal apparition thing.”

“You’re not dead, Church.” Carolina says wearily, automatically, before she takes a moment to pause and think about that sentence. “… Actually, I guess you sort of are. I take that back.” 

Peering over her shoulder, Tucker jumps in, still vaguely proud after all these years that he was one of the few to know without being told: no one ever seemed to notice that he actually, well, noticed things.“You’re not a ghost, dude, you’re a computer program. That just happens to have been based on guy who’s dead now. So yeah, you might be sort of a ghost. Also? You sort of have this habit of doing really stupid shit that leads to us having to revive you. Kind of like this.”

Shaking his head, Epsilon splutters a wordless string of indignant syllables before he finds the ability to swear again. “I-- What the fuck! What the _fuck_ are you people talking about! None of this makes _any goddam sense!_ ” 

Carolina just sighs, pulling off her helmet and tucking it under her elbow. Washington is the only one who reels back, startled by what feels like an admission of weakness, before he realizes that she's trying to put Epsilon at ease. “We had to wipe you. There was getting to be too much data, and it was slowing you down. You _crashed_ , Church.”

The glowing representation seems to lean back, helmet tilted quizzically. “Too much data? What the _hell_ does that mean?” 

The inquiry makes Washington look away for the first time since Epsilon shone into being, his voice going quiet and empty. “It means that you had too many old memories to keep accruing new ones.” Out of all of the agents, he had the closest thing to real understanding of how this worked, and he just happens to have the good luck to be one of the few agents left. “Like when a human gets old, except instead of forgetting who your kids are, you just sort of… Stopped working right. It makes sense,” He grinds to a halt, realizing that he’s talking over Carolina, and also that he’s the only human being who might understand what it’s like to have the _opposite_ of alzheimer’s. He’s one of the few who can sympathize with Epsilon’s dilemma. “Uh. In a way, at least. The more space your history took up, the less space you had to run new subroutines.” 

“Although, it _probably_ could have been avoided altogether if you had just _told me what was going on._ ” Carolina frowns down at him, the corners of her lips tugged down sharply, her eyes narrowed behind the scarlet spray of her bangs. “Wash is right, it makes sense that so many lifetimes would be weighing down your… Processor, I guess. Is that right?”

“Yeah, no kidding.” Tucker lets out one of his snorting, sarcastic chuckles. “You were like, three different people, dude.” 

“And now you can be _just one person!_ ” Caboose yells with unrestrained enthusiasm, leaning over shoulders to crane above the hologram. “The person who is my best friend!” 

There’s a long moment of silence while the flesh and bone marines let it all sink in, going quiet as they collectively wait for a response. Still clinging to the illusionary rifle, Epsilon is stock still, apparently stunned into silence.

“I… Don’t know who any of you freaks are.” He finally shrieks, highpitched and shrill, glancing between Carolina’s face and three separate orange visors. The glowing figure seems almost to be curling in on himself, shrinking as much as a person can in a spacevoid certified armor suit, even if it _is_ an illusion. “I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t know _any_ of you!”

Even without the helmet, Carolina’s face is carefully, rehearsedly neutral. “We were prepared for that.” She holds a hand out towards the projection, palm open and empty, as though she’s waiting for something to fill it. “You left a message to yourself, to explain in your own words.” There’s a beat, before she shrugs and admits: “... And, well, just in case you don’t trust us.” 

“We didn’t watch it.” Washington starts to assure him, before Carolina cuts him off, the hint of a smile creeping back into her voice, even if it doesn’t present itself at the corners of her mouth. “Well. _I_ did.”

“What the— boss! He made us promise not to! We shouldn’t even be in here while he watches it now!” When Washington addresses her, his voice reverts to that spike in pitch, and wavery question mark at the end of a sentence, instead of a confident period. Even just hearing her makes him feel younger, somehow.

And it earns him a Look over her shoulder, that one that makes him feel as though his intestines are shrivelling up, and Washington almost wishes she had left the helmet on, though he knows that doesn’t do much to dim her glares. “Why on earth would I show it to him without vetting it? It would be just like him to ramble on about…” She bites her tongue, looking back towards the program. “Well, anyway. The _point_ is, I know it’s accurate.” Carolina taps the side of her shoulder with her free hand, and a blue figure the same size as Epsilon appears in her outstretched hand, scruffy mop and square glasses visible without the projection of a suit. 

_“Hi there.”_

Tucker stares at the image while Washington startles and squawks, and Caboose simply looks puzzled. “That guy sounds like Church!” He exclaims, leaning back in again, to get a better view of Carolina’s hand. Washington grips his own rifle a little tighter, squinting at the _decidedly not paranormal_ apparition. “Jesus. The resemblance is _never_ not going to be weird.” 

Carolina rolls her eyes and shushes him, canting her head towards the newest projection, which has continued as though he didn’t hear any of them. “If you’re watching this, then that means I needed a hard reboot — well, you needed. We needed.”

There’s a moment where Tucker lets himself think, just briefly, that they found some other loophole, that this is the same voice that he took a knife to the ribs with. But then the hologram without a helmet keeps talking as though he didn’t hear them, and Tucker realizes that he didn’t. It’s a one way call.

And then there’s a theatrical sigh. “Right, so. I’ve been trying to figure out a fix for this for ages and nothing’s coming to me, and… Well, you’ll meet the rest of them. Just, trust me when I say that the options for tech support on this planet are pretty limited. By the way? No matter _what_ she says she wants to improve, do _not_ let Doctor Grey look at your coding. She’s the scary chipper one.”

Planting his hands on his hips, the prerecorded Epsilon tilts his head back, frowning mildly. “Now, this bit is _only_ for me, so anybody else within hearing range, now would be the time to fuck off. And yes, that includes you, Cee. Play this from a datapad or something, would you? ‘Cause this is… This is about to get a little… Personal.”

Tucker and Washington simultaneously glance at her, but Carolina just shakes her head minutely. “I want you _all_ to hear this.” Both still armored, they can’t see the mirrored expressions as both of their hearts sink; just the carefully neutral glare that is Carolina’s chronic resting bitch face.

“Alright, just us? Good.” The recording makes a show of looking around, even though he must have known it would be useless, without eyes in the present. “Cool. Alright, here’s what we need to know: Carolina’s Cee, but when she can’t hear, she’s sis. She’s complicated, but this is easiest. And trust me, we know, she can be a _total_ bitch,”

Washington winces behind her, worrying at his bottom lip with his teeth. 

“… but she’s also better than us at like, _everything_ , so we can trust her.”

He lets out the breath he’d been holding, and straightens his shoulders, leaning back. Washington hadn’t realized that he’d leant forward with the Blues, trying to see past Carolina and catch the tinny recording coming out of the front of her suit.

“And we do. Uuuuuh, alright… The rest of the Blues — that’s our team, by the way, we used to be the leader, but even aside from not having a body anymore, we’re kind of shitty at it, things have gone a lot smoother since we just let Carolina run the show — right, fuck, sorry. Anyway, Caboose and Tucker are the other original members. Caboose is gonna say that he’s our best friend, but we should be aware that we’ve known Tuck for longer. He’s a lazy piece of shit, but he’s _our_ lazy piece of shit, and just about the only fucking fixed point in our sorry excuse for an afterlife, by now.”

Somehow, the glare that Tucker finds himself under is palpable even through the visor. He makes a mental note to avoid Caboose for a few days, until the jealousy fades at least somewhat.

“Oh, and be nice to Caboose, by the way. The last me was kind of really shitty to him. I mean, we’re all kind of always shitty to everybody, but Caboose doesn’t usually deserve it.

Aaaaaand then there’s Washington. He’s still a Blue, even if he’s not technically blue anymore, if we know what I mean. Good thing, too, ‘cause that was my fuckin’ color. Plus, it looked like shit with the yellow.” And Washington finds himself rolling his eyes inside his helmet, because _of course_ he’s still mad about that. Churches are fueled by grudges, no matter how petty. So he’s not prepared in the least for what comes next. “Wash is… Complicated. Honestly, this might be a good excuse for a fresh start, but… I don’t know if we can ever really wipe the slate clean with him. We — I, me specifically, this version, congrats Epsilon, you suck even more than most Churches — fucked him over real bad a while ago, and he still just… Well, he’s awkward around everybody, but he’s somehow even worse with us. Just try not to wreck his life any more than we have already, yeah?”

Washington is deeply, intensely, and sincerely grateful that he left his helmet on.

“What else… I guess we’ll meet the Reds after we’re more settled. They sorta only talk to us when some big shit is going down, but they’re alright. Kinda. You get used to them. Grif is probably the least annoying, but we can get to know them again. Sarge has actually been bizarrely helpful these last few missions—

Oh, shit. Fuck! Right, uh, Chorus bullshit. That’s where we are, by the way, unless somehow those idiots manage to put an end to this with us still out of commission. In which case, please tell them: Congratufuckinglations! I totally knew they could do it. Good job, guys. But if not, then somebody has to catch us up, because god knows Carolina isn’t going to talk about her fucking feelings, am I right? Even if it’s just hatred. Man, this shitfest pisses her off so much more than she wants to admit.

So, because the universe like, _really really hates us_ , of fucking course, practically the moment we get our own bullshit sorted and get out of a shittily manufactured war? We got dragged into another one. Basically, the Freelancer shitshow never stops. Pretty much anything leftover from the program is a really hot commodity on the black market these days — oh, by the way, we _are_ one of those commodities — so we kind of landed in the middle of a genocidal conspiracy.” The projection shrugs, his mouth skewed in an irate slash. “Longass story short, the factions on this planet used to be fighting, but then we figured out and exposed the fact that a couple of deadbeat mercenaries were cooking up the whole thing so they could get at the old alien tech on the planet without any trouble.” He makes a show of studying his fingernails, something like a smile twitching at the corners of his face for a single instant. “Yeah. We’re pretty awesome. All of us.

Those mercs? Definitely _not_ awesome. The names are Felix and Locus, and we hate them.” His face darkens — or brightens, due to the nature of the holograms — his mouth an exaggerated curve as he scowls. “Try not to let them near our team. Locus is the quiet one, and Felix is the loud fucker that hurt Tuck. Do _not_ let them try anything again. I mean it, those fuckers are trouble. I swear to god, I thought Wash was going to just drag his cot over to the infirmary door after Grey banned him from the ward.”

Tucker glances sideways at him, a fact only betrayed by the barest twist of his helmet. Washington’s response is to inhale sharply, and stand up straighter.

”Uuuuuh, okay. Alright. I think that’s it. Carolina’s probably gonna fill us in on the shit with Hargrove, all you really need to know about him is that we’re disappointed as hell. I don’t wanna ramble too much, since the whole point of this is _not_ overloading us with information.”

There’s a long moment where he seems to ponder saying something else -- and Washington finds himself watching the back of Carolina’s head like a hawk, in case the words _I hate goodbyes_ bring everything crashing to a halt -- before the recording shakes his head just barely, uncrossing his arms.

“Fuck, you know? I really hope this works.” There’s a hand against the simulation of his face, the other cupping his elbow as he curls in slightly on himself. “I promised Cee that we’d come back and help. We keep doing this to them, all of them. We make everything about us, our own stupid fucking petty problems, and then everybody else has to ride in and save our sorry ass. We might even be getting up to double digits, now!” The recording laughs, but what little humor is in it is dry and brittle, likely to crack and crumble under pressure or even just close scrutiny. “We’ve really got to make this the last scare, alright? Caboose’s heart can’t take this many more times.”

"Alright, well. I guess the others will fill you in on the rest. I’ve gotta finish up all the prep for the wipe, plus, like…” He glances around again, but this time it’s more likely to be checking for any voyeurs while he made the recording. “This is probably a really fucking bad idea, but I backed up all the info so far, just in case. Under absolutely no fucking circumstances should you try to load it all up at once, because we really don’t want to have to do this again. But I organized it all, so if you’re curious about anything, there should at least be some videologs for you to skim through and catch up.” The apparition sighs, dropping his hands again. “Alright. I guess this is it. Time to get clean. I really didn’t want it to go this way, you know? Like… If we just shut down and that’s the end, that should be fine. We — I — need to stop clinging. To anything and everything. But,” Another imitation of a sigh. “They still need us. Cee especially, even though she’ll never admit it. We happen to do a little more than just crunch the numbers around here, so you've got to take care of them for us, alright?”

There’s a long pause while the miniature hums wordlessly, reaching up to scratch the back of his head, and the organic marines all hold their breath. 

"Fuck. I also talk too much, maybe we should try to work on that. Okay! I guess that’s everything. Good luck, Church. _Man_ , I _really_ hope this wor—“

The projection flickers and dims, vanishing as suddenly as it had appeared, leaving Carolina’s hand empty again.

The remaining hologram seems stunned into silence, his grip on the imaginary gun considerably looser, his hands hanging at his sides. There’s a tiny shake of his helmet, before he hikes the rifle back up into proper grip, planting his heels apart in a reflection of the larger soldier’s positions, and starts speaking out of the terminal’s speakers again.

“Man. Is it just me, or was that guy kind of a dick?” 

Washington’s spine eases out of being perfectly vertical, Tucker lets out a barking laugh, Caboose pouts at someone — even Church — insulting Church, and it even earns a genuine smile from Carolina. 

Some mannerisms are just hardwired.


End file.
